Category: Musings

Keeping a home isn’t the same as keeping a job. The world of paid work gives you almost constant reminders of what you have and haven’t achieved – and thus validation. Home making has none of that. It’s hard and messy and often lonely, too. There’s no manager to keep you on track – you ARE the manager. Your employees are all shorter than you and make all sorts of ridiculous demands in return for their wage.

They are also, paradoxically, your customers, and by God you’d better keep them happy. They love you and irk you by equal turns. These customers think they’re always right. And they get crabby when you tell them no.

Oh looky, it’s posting time of week again! The time when I sit down, ready to pour forth my inspiration on the world and make the blogosphere a happier, more useful, shinier place.

Except I seem to have hit a small snag. I call it “diet and stress-induced anxiety”. Sadly, dear readers, I have been neglecting my self-care rather badly the last week. I’ve been overdosing on coffee in the form of double-espresso mochas, heavy on the cocoa (it’s just so tasty, alright?) I’ve forgotten to eat as much or as well as I normally do. When I HAVE eaten, it’s been the quick and easy stuff – which translates to far too many carbs and nowhere near enough protein. I keep forgetting that since I’m cycling more, I need more fuel, and more protein to keep the muscles going. (I shudder to think how much worse this will look when I start lifting weights again.) Continue reading “On the Fine Art of Procrasti-Writing”

A Farewell

RIP, Robin Williams. Some of my best film memories as a child involve you. My brothers and I always had time for you in our obsessive movie rotation. Mrs Doubtfire, Flubber, Patch Adams, Jack – you showed us so many sides of the human equation.

Hook showed me that’s it’s never too late to retrieve our childlike selves from the monotony of adult life. You taught me that even mechanical men have a heart and soul in Bicentennial Man. What Dreams May Come showed me the beauty of real, strong, lasting love that would literally go to hell and back. One Hour Photo showed a much darker side to your acting range, but brought out the depth of your talent that before then, I’d only seen in comedy.

Farewell, Mr Williams. May the journey you are now on bring you some measure of the peace you struggled to find in Earthly life. You will always have a place in my heart.

So as I’m sure you’ve noticed, things have been quiet around here lately.

Too quiet.

A large part of that is my fault. You see, when I first started Crunchy Squirrel, I had this big idea. A grand story, if you will. The story went something like this:

Once upon a time, an internet hopeful with a thing for squirrels had a baby. As a consequence, she spent a lot – a LOT – of time reading parenting blogs. And homemaking blogs. And natural living (ie “crunchy”) blogs. And looking at all the beautiful homey things on Pinterest. And generally having a yearning for the Little Suzy Homemaker kind of life, with dinner on the table at 7, a chipmunk dressed lovingly in hand-made clothes, and lunches packed for the Raccoon’s sustenance out in the big bad world of study. Continue reading “An Explanation, An Update, And a New Beginning”